hss advice/tips

[frenchji]

Well I posted a while back about my hss guitar with independent tone and volume with a kill switch for each. Well I am in near completion of my guitar and now its time to get serious about the wiring. I think I understand how I need to wire this and I have a diagram and I just basically want confirmation or help if I am wrong. I also need some advice on what capacitors to use for each pickup.. and possibly any other advice you can think of.. such as maybe used different pots. I dunno.. but tell me what you think. Oh and for pickups.. I will be using highgain seymour duncan for the singles and humbucker.

[ChrisK]

It looks ok to me.

You don't need to ground the pickup's output when it's not selected.

[JohnH]

Do all three of those output wires go to the output jack hot? Then any kill switch will shunt all the output.

Also, those reverse wired volume controls will suck tone when you turn them down (ie excessive treble loss due to adding high resistance between pup and output.

I would:
Swap the centre and left lugs of each volume pot.
Make the switches just a series breaker inline with the output ie as Chris says, just delete the earth connection to each switch.
Add treble bleed cap and resistor (220k and 1nF in parallel) across each centre and left pair of volume pots lugs. Optional but reccomended.

That leaves one last problem. having gotten rid of those grounded switch lugs, if all pups are off, the output will float which is noisey. So instead, buy 2 pole switches (DPDT) which are not much more cents than single pole, and wire the second poles all in series from ground to output. Then, the guitar will be quietly shunted to ground, but only when all pickups are off. The DPDTs also have a nicer firmer sort of action than the single pole ones

cheers

John

[jewellworks]

JohnH is right on. i would only add to make sure your using audio taper pots. A250K, or A500K. otherwise, your good.

[frenchji]

Thanks for the help so far.. I had to revise my diagram. I'm making a les paul style guitar so.. I think it makes more sense to wire the switches before the pots.. so here's my new diagram. I didn't add the dpdt switch yet.. I forgot. Yes.. I'm using audio taper for volume.. and probably linear for the tone. Anyway.. how does it look so far.. and any advice on capacitors?

[jewellworks]

Take another look at your Tone pots: I think you need to put your tone cap on the outer right lug, rather than the middle. And the lead comming in, to the middle lug. -Like in your first drawing. Otherwise, the turn of your pot will be backwards from the volume pot. And from personal experience, use an audio taper for the tone as well. The linear only works at about the last 1/4 turn.

As for caps... There is a huge thread all about caps on here. Youve got the option of having 3 different tones, 1 per pickup. If it were me, id mix it up. It depends on how muted you want each pickup to get when you "tone down". A smaller value cap (.00Xuf) will roll off less highs. A larger value (.0XXuf) will roll off more highs. From my experience, anything higher than a .047uf starts to choke it off pretty hard, and you loose volume and it gets kinda "thunky". But it all depends on your style and tastes.

i just put a .015uf cap in my LP, and it gives it a more pronounced midrange. -Just rolls off the highs a tad. -Not too muted. Ive got .022uf's in all my other guitars. Ive gone as high as .033uf, but its not for me.

Im curious what would happen when you have more than one pickup on, and all of them "toned down". Im pretty sure that since they will all be in parallel at the output jack, the cumulative effect will be additive, and youll have an overall higher "tonal value", and a more muted tone overall. In that case, you might want to keep in mind how much you actually use your tone pots, and work backwards. Figgure out how muted you want it to be with everything on, and toned down, and split the difference between each pickup. -Which might sound really strange at each individual pickup when theyre by themselves. -again, it all depends on your style, your tastes, and how you plan on using this guitar.

Just be aware thats whats going to happen if you DO happen to have them all on, and all toned down. The tone caps add up to a larger value, and you get less highs, more mute.

[frenchji]

Ugh.. haha.. I'm not that good when its comes to this stuff.. haha.. I'm not sure why I did that. I'm going to be honest that all the tone and volume knobs are just for looks so I wont be using the tone that much really. My guitar is styled more vintage like.. So that's what the 3 kill switches and knobs are for. Yea.. I wasn't really looking for help with the capacitors.. just some opinions really.. OKay.. haha.. another revised diagram!!!

[jewellworks]

If theyre just for looks, you might want to consider putting the on/off switches after the volume pot, before the jack, like in the first drawing. (but swap your leads on the lugs like in the 2nd and 3rd drawing) the UP side to this, is that when you only have 1 pickup on, the other 2 are out of the load. Theyre not in the circuit loading it down, and your overall output should improve, and with clearer highs. the DOWN side is, when you switch on the other pickups, the load will increase, the output will drop a tad, and with a slight rolloff on the highs. This might be masked by the fact that, by your having another pickup on, the tone will change anyway, so who's to tell?
My LP has the switch to the jack after the volume pots. Its a Strat that has the pickups going to a switch first.
If it were me... Id make it more like the first drawing, but with the corrections mentioned earlier.

[JohnH]

Feb 21, 2009 21:44:46 GMT -5 jewellworks said:

If it were me... Id make it more like the first drawing, but with the corrections mentioned earlier.

..and me too!

the switches are better after the pots, and I still suggest my previous suggestions. If you do that then I wouldnt worry about the number of pots and caps loading the output, because there is always one volume and one tone pot per connected pup, so the tone stays in balance.

Tone pots are best as logs IMO. Volume pots can be either linear or log depending what you want. Log is the usual choice, and would be my preference too if you do the treble bleed parts, since they reduce the fall off in volume as you turn down. If you are wanting to make finely judged mixes of the different pups however, then Id use linear taper for volume controls.

John

[frenchji]

Okay.. I didn't know if it mattered where I put the switches.. it'd just be more convenient to put them before the pots.. but oh well.. not that big of a deal.. wire isn't that expensive right?.. haha.

JohnH.. you mentioned the dpdt switch.. would you still recommend this also?.. and if so.. I'm not understanding the benefits of this really. I don't know much about this stuff... and honestly don't really understand most of it.
Mostly I will be using the volume controls just for mixing the pickups at the right volume.. since I have a volume pedal I won't need it for much else. Would you still recommend the treble bleed also?

Sorry for the questions.. I appreciate the help.

[JohnH]

All yes. I recomended what I did because I think it is the best recomendation

The extra switch pole is because if you leave a wire to hot floating in the all off position, then it picks up a bit of noise like an antennae, But if, in that position it is shunted to ground, then it is dead quiet.

I would use log volume pots with treble bleed caps and resistors. This helps stops treble being lost as you reduce volume, but as I said, this is optional and most guitars that you buy do not have this.

[pete12345]

Feb 21, 2009 20:30:09 GMT -5 jewellworks said:

Take another look at your Tone pots: I think you need to put your tone cap on the outer right lug, rather than the middle. And the lead comming in, to the middle lug. -Like in your first drawing. Otherwise, the turn of your pot will be backwards from the volume pot.

Won't make any difference. The signal is still going through the same terminals of the pot, it matters not which way round you connect it.